~ Rambling and dabbling in books of all sorts.

Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes

Dr. Strauss says I shoud rite down what I think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me from now on. I dont no why but he says its importint to they will see if they can use me. I hope they use me becaus Miss Kinnian says mabye they can make me smart.

Charlie Gordon is a mentally disabled man who undergoes an experimental operation to try and make him smarter. In diary entries, he records how his IQ increases and he gets smarter and smarter, until he eventually surpasses even the doctors who did the operation in intelligence. It seems to be a huge medical breakthrough-until Algernon, the super-smart mouse who has had the same operation, begins a sudden deterioration. Will the same thing happen to Charlie?

This a gripping, thrilling ride of a science fiction novel. The best part of it was the way that Charlie’s entries progress. At the beginning, he can barely write and has not much understanding of anything. Then, he becomes like a regular person, if slightly below average. Then, he begins to write like the average person, before finally becoming a genius, knowing about ten languages. And then- well, I won’t say what happens in the end. But it was a very suspenseful book. One thing, however, that didn’t make sense was that the scientists went straight from testing the experiment on a mouse to a human. In real life, I don’t think they would do that.